Russia conquered Kümen in eastern Ukraine and endangers Kyiv

Russia conquered Kümen in eastern Ukraine and endangers Kyiv

Russia has conquered the strategically important city of Vuhledar in the east of Ukraine, which ends several months of resistance and reflects the challenges before Kiev stands in the third winter of the war. Troops that had the Russian flag over the ruins of the town hall of the devastated city could be seen on film material verified. The population of Vuhledar has dropped from around 14,000 to just over a hundred people.

confirmation of the withdrawal of the Ukrainian troops

The Ukrainian military leadership confirmed the withdrawal from Vuhledar on Wednesday and found that Russia had used reserve staff on the flanks, which led to the “threat of encirclement”. The decision to retreat was made to "save personnel and military equipment".

Putin's goals in the Donbass

A central goal of Russia's President Vladimir Putin is complete control over the eastern region of Donbass. This year, Russia has gradually progressed in the east, and Vuhledar's loss occurs while the Ukrainian President Selenskyj returns from a meeting with US President Joe Biden without his most important demands being met.

meaning of vuhledar

Vuhledar, a city that was built around a coal -fired power plant (its name comes from the Ukrainian word for coal), is about 50 km south of Pokrovsk and has been considered Russia's main attack center in the east for several months. Although Vuhledar is not a transport and logistics center like Pokrovsk, it was heavily fortified and was seen as a decisive bastion at the interface between the eastern and southern fronts of Ukraine. A prominent Russian war blogger, Boris Rozhin, noticed that the victory was "operational, if not operational-strategic".

The challenges for Ukraine

like Avdiivka, another strategic city in the east that fell in February, Vuhledar is a victim, not Russian strategic sophistication, but brutal wear. For two years, Ukraine had done a remarkable defense fight there, while Russia tried several times and failed to take the city. A failed Russian attack in February 2023 led too much vertebrae among pro-Kremlin military bloggers when hundreds of Russian troops marched directly into the line of the Ukrainian artillery firing, which was fired by the city's high-rise buildings.

a fresh blow for Ukraine

The fact that Russia could mobilize enough reserves to wrench the city underlines the personnel advantage that it still has four months after the Mobilization Act comes into force in Ukraine. "I confidently said that you would have to be a fool to have our people encoded, but someone did it," wrote the Ukrainian soldier and blogger Stanislav Büriatov in a Telegram post. He claimed that the soldiers had withdrawn in small groups and suffered under the shelling of Russian drones, while the wounded "to shoot through the enemy" were left behind.

The political implications of defeat

The time of this loss is also felt strongly in Kyiv. It takes place less than two months after the Ukraine has expanded the battlefield to the Kursk region in Russia - a step that aimed to reduce the pressure on other fronts and reverse the fate of Ukraine after the Russian advances in the east. There have also been only a few days since Selenskyj has returned from a politically charged diploma trip in the United States, where there were new help commitments, but no security guarantees in NATO-style or permission to use Western rockets against Russia.

The continued threat from Russian attacks

Only last week Selenskyj in the US network ABC explained that "we are closer to peace than we think". Vuhledar's loss means that Ukraine now has to struggle to stop another western push of Russia, which makes the prospect of reconc on the territories even more distant. In addition, there was no decline in the Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, with the international energy agency warns that "this winter will far from be the biggest challenge that we have had".